


take time, make slow

by derogatory



Category: Warchild Series - Karin Lowachee
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, POV First Person, Past Sexual Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-17 02:23:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4648647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/derogatory/pseuds/derogatory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>four problems Evan solved with sex and one problem he couldn't</p>
            </blockquote>





	take time, make slow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marchpanes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marchpanes/gifts).



i.  
I wish I had more answers to Jos' questions, especially if it meant I got to watch him squirm more. He asks 'em and I answer, and I can see him go back into his own head, try and get away from the thoughts I'm putting there. Six years, and nothing mine 'cept what effect I have on people. 

Only Musey's not like that. Falcone must've screwed him up real bad cause he's not biting. But there's appeal in disgust, right? Gotta be, I have the marks to prove it.

He's done with his report so I'm the captain's problem now. They'll vent me or pass me around or shunt me off on some station before the outriders find me. Not Jos' problem, so what's he care? He's not gonna sit around and wait for the axe to drop. That's on me. Should be used to it by now; you don't save nobody, and no one saves you.

Until then I'm here. Room's nice, but without my voice running nonstop I can hear it drip. Something's busted in the bathroom. Dripping water like it's screaming in my ears. One two one two.

There's a guard outside but he don't give a shit.

On _Shiva_ you can't get in the habit of sleeping too heavy, you wanna see what's coming for you. Not much you can do to stop it, but nobody in deep space likes a surprise. Jos wants me to think here's not like that, but everywhere is like that when you go far enough in. Me showing up on his captain's boat was a surprise and I'm gonna bleed for it eventually. I sleep light and the noise keeps me up.

One two, one. Two. It's not an even sound.

I can feel it on my face, even if it's the whole length of the q away, this military issue space that's huge compared to back corners and cages. Or the sliver of breathing space under a body. I press my face into the blankets, build them up higher around me. It feels like my head is still under the water, fingers digging into my neck. One. Two, one two one. Two one.

Next time I complain, Dumas puts his hand on my chest and pushes me down. They're big hands, thick fingers. I wonder else is thick.

I split my legs at the knees.

The pirates kept me without water couple times. Lips chapped and bloody, they got me drinking up lots of something else, but no water for shifts. I forget what the punishment was for, probably something with scrubbing. Shane used to give me hell 'bout the way I halfassed chores. Shane's face is a blinding flash, like a punch to back of the head.

After discipline like that, that first gulp of real water feels like looking at Dumas' stare. Yeah, I never liked doing it, who the fuck could? Doesn't mean I don't miss that kick of power like a thirst, watching Dumas watch me.

"Stay the fuck back, pirate," he says but moves closer. Bodies give better commands than mouths. Except they're useful too.

I lick my lips. 

"Sorry," I say, on instinct. "It's really loud. Can you hear it?"

Ground's cold so I get up and he pushes again.

The worst thing you can do during is start laughing. Nobody ever takes it the way you mean. It's a quick way to lose some teeth. Crying most people can handle, some are pretty into it, but crying's something you grow out of. You can still make the sound, but your body is all caught up in the other things it's on the floor to do. Don't waste water on tears over what you're good for.

But laughing is hard to train out. I just can't help it, that jet putting hands on me. 'Cause Jos is just a fucking kid, what's he know about how things work on a ship? Put him in a uniform and call him educated, but I know how things get done in the real world.

My face feels raw where it scraped the floor. Guess it had been a while. I don't feel much anyplace else, and once it's done I put myself in the hollow space between the blankets.

When I wake up the faucet's fixed. Guess Dumas must've heard it over his own grunting.

 

 

 

ii.  
The first time was on accident. But that's what they all say, right?

I'd knocked on the hatch, wanted some more smokes, and there she was, new jet guard mopping tears off her face, hoping maybe I didn't notice. 

No way I didn't spend the rest of the goldshift on my side of the hatch, listening for her little sniffles. It took awhile but I caught her at it again. She's mad, but I got her pinned. Another dripping water problem.

Something 'bout looking like you're half dead makes people go hard one way or another when they deal with you. They either wanna help put you down or pull you up, there's nothing in the middle. You don't game anybody acting like stuff's in control. Somebody looks sad, you look low. Make 'em feel less pathetic by being close by. 

Things could always be worse right? You could be like D'Silva. Who's he gonna tell?

She's letting me catch her cry, and I got nothing but time for a new recruit.

Turns out her old bunkmate keeled over a week ago. Some space disease I forget the name for as soon as it slips out of her sad mouth. It takes two weeks to incubate. They got her on guard duty till she's clear, and nobody sees a risk infecting a pirate who's already been drained of what he knows.

She don't trust me, but she's lonely. I tell her I get that a lot.

I spread my legs before I realize it. They're not a conscious part of my body anyway, everything below the waist belongs to someone else. You figure that, you work with it, and you survive. Anything to get her to stop crying, sure, you name it.

It happens twice. She tastes like salt and burnt wires and it passes the time. 

A blueshift later I'm ready for round three, but it turned out she was sick too. Fucked a dying girl, not the first charitable thing I've done.

I wonder if anybody tells Jos. Maybe not, he doesn't visit, or maybe that's just proof enough he knows. I figure dying in a military hole is better than being torn up by the outriders. But I wouldn't complain about a change of scenery.

New guard's no crybaby, but no Dumas either, and all he does with my mouth is knock it bloody. Two weeks are up, my quarantine passes. Why'd Vallejo die and you're still around? 

I don't know. I wasn't the first kid on _Shiva_ , and I kept living where smarter, better looking ones got run to death. Maybe I'm good at surviving. Maybe I'd be better as a smear on the engineering deck like my parents. Nobody asks me what I want out of any of this. They didn't ask, but it gets them to let me out on chaperoned walks.

 

 

 

iii.  
"All right?" Hartman comes up alongside me as Jos leaves the bar. She says it more like a command and I nod, numb. Her voice drowns under the sharp noise in my head. Music's so damn loud here that she still gotta shout, even with her mouth close to my ear. Run the whole roster of sick deeds and you'll have a tough time finding ones that haven't been done to me-- but somebody's hot breath in my ear still feels like one of the worst. Not like they care.

"You wanna get out of here?" she asks. They got their own way of saying it here, soljet ways of being coy. I'm a late learner for that stuff ‘cause there's no subtlety in whoring, but I'm getting the signals and their codes.

"Yeah." The ship's got its fair share of ugly bastards, but Hartman ain't one of 'em, not even close. 

She waits until we're on the gangway, after a group of other jets skate by before she snakes arms around me. My back hits the lev wall as it rushes towards jetdeck, her teeth hit my skin.

Women aren't gentle. Serrano used to tell me shit like that with me at her breast. You see that? Back on earth, old time pirate women would go around with their tits out so men knew when they'd been killed by a woman. Fight them and the ocean tides, some great pulsing body of blue space on earth. Nothing gentle 'bout that. She'd say this and force my mouth down.

Hartman's not her, not even close, but I can hear my own breath echoing between us. All in, nothing out. 

She screws up her face in something, maybe it's concern or anger, but whatever don't matter. It threads my muscles with fear. I drop my face anyplace else to escape it, dig my fingers in her skin and press my mouth between her thighs. Hartman's tying knots with fingers in my hair.

Take advantage, D'Silva, do what you're good for.

Cap would wrap her arms around me and bend her body over, folding me into her, like a mother, but she squeezed too tight. She said a while back she had a child, that it fell out of her in bloody pieces. She stamped it out on the deck. Crushed it under her heel, and me too. 

My boy, she laughed and split me open with her fingers, other things.

Some jets got these weird sidelong looks when it's over. Pirates don't. I'm pretty sure pirates aren't even wired for it. And not all jets make those faces, most of 'em see a bedbug for what it is. The few that don't, they got these pouty stares, like they regret it. You raise kids right and they think they owe you some sad looks and kindness, like I didn't already get what I wanted out of that lay. 

I can't read Hartman's yet. After we're done I go looking, but there's still somebody else's face over hers, even when she's not pinned on top of me. I watch the floor instead. Got real used to doing that before.

Still, I got what I wanted, don't matter if she feels guilty about it or wants to stare at me with Cap's eyes. _Macedon_ 's a good place to be, taking advantage, and I'm barely thinking about what else Jos meant.

 

 

 

iv.  
Yuri's not open for business and I'm not gonna complain. Kinda got used to having a monopoly, no matter how rustled Jos gets about it. 

So Yuri doesn't game anybody, or else it's a long game. I'm starting to forget how to play on pirate ships, cause turning stupid is part of my new education. But if Kirov's got a scheme after bustin' out of one prison and taking a stupid long route into ours, I haven't spotted it yet. Not sure if I'd snitch on him if I did.

"Getting long," Yuri says, my hair between his fingers. It takes getting used to, having something on me that's my own. But this is how pirates work, as quick as you take a scrap for yourself, they gotta grab it back.

"I can cut it if you want," he continues in a low voice. He stretches his legs out on the step above me. 

Once the captain started letting him out of his q, he comes and finds me here sometimes. We lay over the stairwell, smoke, block the way, and scare the hell out of some new recruits. I don't know how he convinced Azarcon to let him loose with Ryan still on ship, chest all stitched back together and eyes looking faker than before. 

I wonder if he did the same kinda stuff I did to get outta my prison cell. Then again, that'd be tough for Yuri. He's got a bird in there. And Dexter.

"You wanna cut my hair?" I ask. Yuri's leg shifts away when I reach out for it, up high. "What'll it cost me?" 

If you slide a blade there, a guy'll bleed out. I thought that enough while my hands were scrambling against thighs like that, slick with sweat, pulse pounding through their skin as they thrust forward. I couldn't hold them back and felt blood pump through them, mouth full, eyes watering, throat seizing. 

I barely think about that anymore, but a pirate on board is like a bruise of a reminder. 

And even if Kirov's a fucking mind reader, all hopped up on geisha tricks, he doesn't remember me. I watched him split open Kalea's face with a knife but nah, I wasn't there in his head. It's nice for awhile, somebody else walking around the ship more dirty than me, not knowing 'bout _Shiva_. How things worked there and now how I work here.

It doesn't last though. He can smell it the second I put the deal on the table.

"Maybe," he says, slow. "Or you could let me keep the scissors when I'm done."

He cuts it, he keeps 'em, and we screw anyway. Both done bent over the sink. It's hardly business, and mostly fun.

I tell him-- think of it like a bonus.

"Someone thinks highly of himself," Yuri laughs around his cig, skimming smoke in my eyes.

 

 

 

v.  
Jos is going back to Aaian-na. Temporarily, he says, there's diplomacy and shit to be done, him and Warboy. It's all some grand scheme to build trust and maintain peace, not that I've seen any. He's taking the Captain and they don't know how long it's gonna be. If peace is the objective, I bet a long fucking time. We'd run out of oxygen before that'd ever get settled.

"I'm going too."

Jos glances briefly from his slate. "We can't take you with us."

"Why not? Captain's takin' Dorr." I throw myself onto my own bunk, squeeze my eyes shut. 

"Dorr is his personal escort."

"So what? I can have titles too." I'm trying not to, but I can see Jos in my memory, pushing me off on the betrayed _Macedon_ crew, or another him, smaller, disappearing under the darkness when I'm pulled out of our cell. It was the worst thing I'd seen 'till _Shiva_ , and watching Falcone take him away a couple years later rocketed past that. It ain't happening again. Don't waste water. I'm trying not to.

It's stupid. The whole thing is dumb as hell. He isn't saying nothing.

"I'm not gonna fuck my way through Warboy's turf if that's what you're worryin' about."

"I'm not," Jos cringes. Yeah, now you are. 

I turn, put my back to him, and I can tell he's watching me. I can feel it in the line of my shoulders. 

There are a few ways this'll go. I let Jos leave me alone on this ship, which is a shorter option than I can spit. Jos says he'll be back, but he also says that it'll be dangerous, and symp spy or not I know he's still a stupid kid when it comes to survival. He knows I won't go where he ain't but that's always been my problem, not his. I left him back on _Mukudori_ and he lived with it, kept living with it. And now he's gonna take off while I sleep, off to go get murdered by strits in the middle of nowhere.

Wasting water. He can hear me breathing fast. But he just calls the lights lower.

There are other ways it could go. Ways that would get me on that planet with him. I could fuck the pilot and stow away on their airlift. Not hard to do, I already looked up the flight manifest. I know what I'm capable of, what I'm good for. 

But then what? 

Jos ain't going to be happy to see me and Cap might toss me out mid atmosphere. Dorr's not gonna plead my case. There's not a person on that boat that would want me around and I'm threading my fingers in my shirt, trying not to feel his eyes on me.

I met the Warboy a couple times, after a couple awkward hallway encounters while they finished up their weird negotiations. Called me and Jos for some bullshit tea ceremony. I didn't like it. It was sour and reminded me of the geisha house. Maybe that's what he's into. Warboy did seem like he watched me too close when I talked. But his eyes were wrong, in a way where I couldn't read what they really wanted. He looks at Jos the same way.

It's fucked up to think about sleeping with the Warboy when Jos is right there. But I'm doing it, even if it turns my stomach. I could do it, I'd be good too, he'd keep me there, and then what? He'd argue they should keep me around-- for what? Blowin' my way through some peace negotiations?

It's stupid. 

I must've fallen asleep, 'cause suddenly it's darker and something's on top of me, big and warm. Don't matter what I closed my eyes too, it's a surprise and I don't want it, I never wanted it. I tear and thrash. 

Tension ekes out of me when my fingers find the edge of the blanket. Jos must've got up, tugged it over me at some point.

I roll over and look at his shadow across the dark. He breathes slow and long, a deep sleep. Safe, unfamiliar. He's facing me, even if I wasn't looking at him before now. If I stretch my arm, I could touch the edge of his bunk. I can be there in a heartbeat if he wanted me, but he doesn't. It won't solve anything. This space between is what makes things safe.

I watch the hatch instead, and don't plan fucking Warboy or strits or anybody else. Instead I try to imagine how much work peace will take, how long until things aren't a total mess and Jos can be back here, sleeping like that. 

I don't think I fit into that future, somewhere safe, but maybe I can survive in it for him. I've done a lot worse for less.


End file.
